The four new appointees will replace four commissioners who were installed by former President Donald Trump, who helped craft the controversial “Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture” executive order, which decried modern architecture and sought to make neoclassical architecture the official style for federal buildings.
The incoming cohort are Peter Cook, a principal at HGA Architects with projects including the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture; Hazel Ruth Edwards, a professor and chair of Howard University’s Department of Architecture; Justin Garrett Moore, the inaugural program officer of the Humanities in Place program at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; and Billie Tsien, a partner at Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects.
The current chair of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts and advocate of classical architecture, Justin Shubow, who was appointed to chair the commission by President Trump in 2018, provided NPR with a copy of a letter he received from Catherine M. Russell, director of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, requesting his resignation. The letter, dated May 24, states, “Should we not receive your resignation, your position with the Commission will be terminated effective 6:00 pm tonight.”
The remaining members asked to resign are landscape architect Perry Guillot, architect Steven Spandle, and artist Chas Fagan.
Shubow reportedly refused to resign. His response goes as follows, "As chairman of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, I was shocked and dismayed to learn that three of my fellow commissioners, along with myself, have been asked to resign or be terminated by the President. In the Commission's 110-year history, no commissioner has ever been removed by a President, let alone the commission's chairman. Any such removal would set a terrible precedent."
President Biden revoked Trump’s executive order in February, and, with that, instructed the director of the Office of Management and Budget and any related departments and agencies to rescind any orders, rules, guidelines, and the like that would have implemented Trump’s actions.
I’m smiling so widely right now that I’m in danger of losing balance and tipping over with glee! So thrilled that brilliant people like Billie Tsien and Justin Garrett Moore are in while dilettantes like shoot bow are out!
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I’m smiling so widely right now that I’m in danger of losing balance and tipping over with glee! So thrilled that brilliant people like Billie Tsien and Justin Garrett Moore are in while dilettantes like shoot bow are out!
Donna, glad you’re happy. Wondering...do you make a practice of goofing on people’s names in your professional life, or is it just on the internet?
I do, and twice to your face.
LOL TIQM I think I *have* made joke versions of Shubow’s name in the past but this was an honest autocorrect accident! That said, with the last name Sink I generally expect other people to have thick skin around jokes related to names.
I didn't know that Trumpers were conossoieurs of the fine arts. Heck, let's give old Trumpo credit for not installing a McDonalds next to the Rose Garden or adding "Golden Archers" to the White House roof.
Good riddance, trads.
Found the trads.
What did these opportunist toadies expect exactly?
Good riddance to that fucking KKKunt.
“Should we not receive your resignation, your position with the Commission will be terminated effective 6:00 pm tonight.”
What class. Did Hunter write this for Pops?
Volunteer did you mean this as a joke? Because if not it sounds to me like you’re asking for responses that give examples of how many exceptionally “classy” acts the previous administration committed?
And let me just excavate this a little more. Volunteer, do you think that kind of phrasing is not common in every letter ever written by an institution or company telling someone their position is terminated? What sounds un-business like about it? And is it really the language you object to, or is it the replacement of four white men with people from more diverse backgrounds to better reflect our nation? If you have a problem with the most welcoming country in the world providing seats at the table for non-white men, I think you should say that out loud. Do you have an issue with Black and Asian humans representing the interests of our nation?
I think my favorite part of Volunteers comment is that he thinks it's a dis. It's typical for knuckle dragging white nationalist trolls.
"the most welcoming country in the world" unless you are Black, Latino, Muslim, poor, etc.
Miles: the ideal of the US is that we welcome all people, that all are equal and all should have, in our country, equal opportunity and lack of barriers to succeed in whatever they may wish. Our reality is clearly not that. But if we want to TRY to live up to that ideal then we need institutions to be made up of people who look like the whole country, not only like white men.
"Volunteer, do you think that kind of phrasing is not common in every letter ever written by an institution or company telling someone their position is terminated? What sounds un-business like about it?"
I was about to ask the same question.
It’s a hoot that if you disagree with some folks on this board, it means that you must be branded a racist. This is the sad place our discourse has arrived. Shameful.
US ideal hasn't been the same. All who were deemed human were equal but only white were deemed human. All the rest were deemed less than human. This is because U.S. is racist. The English language is racist. Also, only male can be in charge of anything. So it was also misogynistic. This is because we are a Christian colony with Christian views from the King James version of the Bible and women were subordinates of men and were to be seen not heard. The ideal changed based on a different interpretation and view of what is right and wrong, what is human, and that's because we have more egalitarian views among younger generations because that is taught but ask yourself.... is that idealism you proposed as US ideal really the ideal. US is not homogenous in our values.... even today. If that is truly the ideal that all Americans value then Trump would never have been President, EVER..... not even a single vote would go to him. It wasn't an ideal in America that was ever consistent. It was an ideal of progressives but progressives isn't the U.S. It's only a part of it. Now, if you look to U.S. history, do you really think the Manifest Destiny was noble for the ideals of all people are created equal? I think our Native Americans will have a very different view point on that. They might see it as nothing but a justification for genocide..... basically a "Mein Kampf" manifesto of 19th century American presidents and ideals of conquest and killing those "savages". The words of the Constitution has different meanings for those in the 1780s and those in the 19th century and those in the mid-20th century and those today and any sort of period of time. Our founding fathers were slave owners and were part of the institution of inequality. If all were equal, why did they kept slaves. Individuals may have moral conflict then because not all individuals were inherently believeing blacks were subhumans. Some felt that changing an already well established institution of slavery would be too difficult.
In short, lets not say stuff like US ideal. There isn't one. There is ideals of factions in the US but we are not a united homogenous people. We are in a "civil cold war". We are in a war among factions within the U.S. That is what we are. I don't think the U.S. ever really have an idealism. Each faction has their ideals and values and that's why the conflicts between sides and what is essentially a schizophrenia in out country's politics. I don't want to take sides in the kind of stupid that will take the whole human race into extinction.
Don't ask me to be a social justice warrior because warrior infers the person is going to war and war means killing and extermination of the enemy/opponents.
Is rcz Richard?
Who else?
yes, rwcb version II.
I don't have tears for any of those Trump appointees. However, I am a little bit tired of SJW propaganda and their general "all whites are evil racists people" overtone while artificially propping up people deemed "minorities". People should not get any special 'propping' up based on their race/ethnicity or gender.
I'm more than a little bit tired of the bad faith right wing narrative that any of that ^ is actually happening.
Yes, it actually is happening. It's been happening since affirmative action was created and to an extent, it still is.
One side asserts it is still needed to counter biases against minorities and gender. If you can't hire people based on their qualifications and keep discriminating biases out of the equation of determination factors then you shouldn't be an employer and literally should get you ass kicked, business shut down, business and other licenses revokes, and thrown in jail for 15 years without possibility of early release, and barred from establishing a business even as a partner for 25 years after that and not be allowed to employ people during that timeframe. Harsh penalties but that's what a person deserves if they can't keep those biases under control and out of the factors of hiring/firing.
Race and gender isn't something to be a part of determining if someone should be hired or denied being hired. Government aid programs and scholarships/grants are things that is to be need base, merit based..... never racial or gender based. California had banned affirmative action, via Proposition 209, in 1996. It mandated that "the state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.". The problem is intentional "inclusion" is also an intentional "exclusion". It means, you are intentionally going to deny a job position to someone who is white for someone who is not. It is wrong as it would be to intentionally exclude someone who is not white for someone who is.
Why are we not applying what is right and correct and not to intentionally do either on anything based on race/ethnicity or gender? Pay be the same regardless of gender. It would be based on years of experience, role & responsibilities. You don't make a person who is a woman have less pay just because she is a woman. If she has the same years of experience as a male counterpart in the same exact position and role and associated responsibilities then the pay should be exactly the same. Again, pay should not be based on gender or race/ethnicity of the person in a job position.
Race/Ethnicity and gender should not be a factor in ANY decision relating to employment and pay rates. Doing so *IS* discrimination based on race/ethnicity and/or gender and/or any other protected class. Yeah, the policy is color blind or gender blind because race/ethnicity/gender/(and other protected classes) are not to be factors in these decision. If you hire someone because they are a woman or because they are a classified as a particular racial/ethnic group then you are discriminating against everyone else.
The point is the far left is catering too much to prop up the minority that they are discriminating on base of race just as much as the far-right in their white supremacy policy is discriminating against minority. Both sides are discriminating. This is why extremists are always ultimately wrong even if there is shreds of truth to their point of view, they are ultimately going to be wrong because each extreme is exclusionary by definition.
Who are you exclusionary to?
I rather not be exclusionary at all but I am not going to be preferentially inclusionary to any race or ethnic group. If I am going to be preferentially inclusionary... it would be for all groups and all genders. If I am going to have one position available, I am not going to make my decision based on race or gender. I'm going to have a difficult time choosing but who do I choose. It might not be a white person. It might not be a male. It might be a woman or not. It might be someone that is white. It it might be a lot of things but it is not going to be something I'm going to know in advance. That's what the interview process, to help in determining the best candidate out of a group of well qualified candidates for a position.
If you are interviewed, you are being considered for the position. You might or might not win the position. Personality compatibility matters more than gender or race/ethnicity. However, you're competency matters but a part of that is determined in the interview because the resume/application is only a qualification assertion on paper. We may still need to determine validity of competency on the spot in person. That's what an interview is to determine.... right?
Watch your language. It is your character on display.
The letter was crude, vulgar, and tasteless, written by someone who most likely couldn't spell 'Commission of Fine Arts'. What it has to do with race is beyond me. All the black people I know would find the tone and substance of the letter repulsive.
Stop, you tweaker snowflake. Four white men, running anything, let alone an asshat with zero competency in architecture, is reason alone to shit can these magatools.
And your delicate sensibilities are really on display, with your screeching about this letter. Which you haven't quoted one sentence that is objectionable.
Volunteer: what *exactly* is crude, vulgar, and tasteless about the phrasing “Should we not receive your resignation, your position will be terminated”? This is standard business/legal phrasing.
Also, *exactly* how many Black people do you know, and have you polled them already?
Deafening silence...
I know and work with several black people. None would think of writing something so crude and vulgar as the letter from 'Catherine M. Russel, director of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel' This went out on White House stationary and reflects poorly on all of us. I have had to terminate people and I certainly didn't do it this way. If you tolerate working in organizations that act like this then you have no self-respect.
You're just restating the thesis every time we ask for examples. Please explain what *exactly* you find crude, vulgar, or tasteless about this.
Also, a cursory poke around the internet does not turn up the full contents of the letter or any kind of scanned copy, only the single line quote provided by NPR and repeated by other outlets covering the story. I worry you're mistaking the quote for the entirety of the letter. If the quote is in fact the entire communication and not an excerpt, you might have a point, but that seems unlikely.
What the Biden Administration did here is very unusual, and breaks a longstanding precedent. And it's brazenly political, as the appointees who were terminated are the Trump appointees, as I understand it. I suspect this is not a decision based on an aesthetic or philosophical agenda. Several of the remaining commissioners are classically oriented. It's as if they simply want to erase any trace of Trump (which I understand, frankly).
"Breaking longstanding precedent" doesn't automatically mean something is bad, or good. Trump broke many of them; when Biden does it I just assume I'll mainly agree with him more, but the act itself isn't inherently good or bad. I do, as a US citizen, believe that a greater diversity of expert voices on any topic *is* inherently good.
Volunteer: "If you tolerate working in organizations that act like this then you have no self-respect." We've heard lots of stories on here from people who were laid off from firms in a conference room meeting then essentially perp-walked back to their desk to get their personal belongings with all of their email and computer access immediately revoked. I think that's a shitty way to treat people, but it's the reality of employment for the vast majority of people. Kudos to you if you are a more kumbayaa-type leader!
The previous commission members had no outstanding qualifications other than being white, male, and doing lots of work for rich people, so this is a big improvement as these are all accomplished educators and advocates for arts and architecture.
Here's hoping these members will think hard about the value of these projects and benefits to local communities and not just how to pad theirs and their friend's portfolios and pocketbooks.
However, I'll close with my unpopular opinion... Billie Tsien's work isn't very good and there are much better practicing architects they could have chosen.
Um yeah, the last part, completely wrong.
LOL I’m glad you admit to that being an unpopular opinion, archanonymous! Agree to disagree on Billie Tsien’s work. She is an extremely empathetic human, though, and I think that’s a huge value to the CFA .
Totally, and very accomplished, reportedly a good studio professor, etc... I just don't like any of their buildings!
archanonymous, the portfolio of architectural work isn't necessarily the absolute most important part for serving on the CFA. Sure, there maybe some individuals who is better at design but doesn't have the other qualities that maybe desired of someone serving in some appointed commission.
I've never looked into the other people beyond Shubow. It's interesting, I can't find much on the architect. The artist's work is alright to me, if not a little boring. And I actually like the landscape architect's stuff for what it is. Though, I think your point about them doing lots of work for rich people pretty much sums it up. All very odd choices for the scale and nature of their post... unless you're trying to project a very particular image and agenda....
Anyway, I do think the choices made could have been better. In particular, I don't love that all four of them are architects/urban designers. No Landscape architects, and no professional artists? Seems like a miss to me. I'm also hit or miss on Billie Tsien's work, but like her for this position regardless.
The focus on classicism was a waste of time -- and ultimately irrelevant. But the current group could possibly do more damage, especially vis-a-vis the movement for DC statehood. The only way that would work is if DC were completely moved to another state -- Colorado or Idaho perhaps, connected with a SF to NY high speed rail. Though I imagine this group this will end up making political messages via a now inert and politicized commission on fine arts that will paint BLM on the Jefferson Memorial and talk about it on NPR.
That's some imagination you've got.
or bad acid
I assume, then, the other three members are staying. Here are bios on the departing:
https://www.cfa.gov/about-cfa/...
Click on the names.
"Appointed 12 January 2021" curious.
The bowties ....
Pretty common in the east-coast trad architecture community. :)
Appointees serve at the pleasure of the Appointer. So, typically a person who is hired can just as easily be fired, unless there is a union involved. Be happy with the opportunities that come your way and do the best you can while you can, because no one is guaranteed a tomorrow.
I voted for Biden. Sad to see Shubow go. I hoped we might get better public buildings, but I guess it’s back to the status quo.
If you want better public buildings then we have to have better architects who can design buildings better but then you're really complaining about the current styles popular in "starchitecture". It is what you teach the impressionable minds as what is "good" architecture, after all. They are imprinted their architectural values.... much of it in architecture school and the rest by their employers that mold them.
The Trump edict on architectural design for buildings is about like saying, All future automobiles shall be styled after the Model T Ford. Boy, wouldn't that simplify life and travel for all of us? I can't wait!
What else would Trumpo have had in mind for America. Geez, sorry we won't be able to find out.
He was well on his way to Prima Nocte.
Off with their heads!
https://www.wsj.com/articles/b...
This misses so many points and makes so many false correlations I can only conclude Panero is being intentionally obtuse.
What an extraordinarily obtuse piece. It is tone deaf and architecturally simplistic, if not naive. First, it ignores the context: those appointees and Shubow's promotion to chair follow on the heels of the executive order that made neoclassical the default style for federal buildings. They wanted to go further earlier, to make the style mandatory. That was a political move. And the order and this piece fit in with the heavily politicized "cancel culture" mania.
I don't know that the new appointees are opposed to neoclassical. They are, however, a more diverse group, in keeping with the reality of diversity in this country. Most here at Archinect argued neoclassical could certainly be an option.
Second, it is overly generous with the qualifications of the dismissed. Shubow himself has no practical experience with the discipline. His writing is pointed but superficial.
Which false correlation do you think is the most egregious?
Probably the comparison between a volunteer appointee losing his voluntary appointment and statues being toppled by violent hoards, but there are plenty.
“This article tries to muster a lot of arguments for maintaining the dominance of Greco-Roman classical style but doesn't have a single reference more recent than 1933.“
Not sure what your point is here. There are many more recent public buildings in DC designed in neoclassical styles.
The Billie Tsien (and Todd Williams) Logan Center for the Arts, University of Chicago. I like it a great deal. It has presence and character, is distinctive and monumental. Yet at the same time it is reserved, coordinated and proportioned, perhaps, abstractly, in a classical sense. It defines and shapes its program and engages itself and the world around it in many different ways, which change as you circle. It also shows engagement with architecture itself, past and present. And it gives us a sense of where we are today, or maybe where we would like to be.
Plus she has experience, deep and varied.
In short, this is the kind of sensibility that Tsien brings to the Commission, which will inform her decisions. I would like to see similar public buildings on our landscape.
Outgoing Steven Spandle, by contrast, largely built residential homes and designed the neoclassical tennis shack at the White House.
I've been to the Logan Center. It is SO beautiful, and so humane.
TIQM/EKE, question, do you read texts in the original German, Swedish, or Chinese?
That's interesting. Where are you going with this? :)
Thanks for posting this, Gary. I'm curious what about this building you see as being "coordinated and proportioned,perhaps, abstractly, in a classical sense".
Poisitions of power are invitations to corruption.
TIQM—
I said classical in an abstract sense. We admire the Greek temples, for example, not for their columns, pediments, proportions, etc. per se, but because the elements have been modulated and brought together in energetic, unified, and convincing statement. They have presence, they have life.
Kostof, in his History, on the metopes of the Parthenon:
In many of the metopes the struggle was shown in mid-course: there was no victor, no vanquished. Warring opposites complemented each other in intricate, almost heraldic, groupings—and this is perhaps another essential aspect of the term Classical. It conjures aloofness, a sense of timeless idealism; but involvement, too, and violent involvement at that, is part of the Classical spirit.
The Pantheon itself contained and reflected that idealism, those energies.
In the Logan Center there is active play of controlled proportions in rising statement, asymmetric but interrelated and unified. It has not the energy of warring factions, however, but of uplift. I am reminded of:
No direct, literal classical reference in the center, of course, but I can't believe Tsien and Williams haven't spent much time studying architecture across the ages, around the world.
The center also references older buildings on the campus.
Many of the great modernists, I believe, made the tour of Greece, as did some Postmodernists:
Michael Graves
"Pantheon" should be "Parthenon." I need to turn autocorrect off.
it was mentioned indirectly in another comment but worth emphasizing: the members of the commission on fine arts are unpaid volunteers. They provide volunteer advice and review on design for the government.
the reason none had been fired before is because they were apolitical recognized experts who represented views popular with the design community and presented nothing objectionable to future administrations. Shubow has none of those qualities.
Also most people with better things to do would resign a voluntary design advisory position when asked. Since what use is your opinion if you report to a committee that has no respect for your views.
And most if not all of Trump's appointees were political and were puppets of their appointer..... THE DON.... and his GREAT AND HOLIER THAN THOU GOD OF THE UNIVERSE..... bullshit. I hold no sympathy for Trump appointees getting the boot because they were never qualified for their position because Trump on purpose did not appoint people who were qualified unless he had no choice or that the legal system prescribes certain qualification requirements that can not be appointed without meeting those.
abolish the US commission of fine arts all together
Time was a town had its identity defined, enhanced, and tempered by its churches and a court house. (I can't remember the last time we saw a church here.) So much is given now to commercial and residential construction, which, in high rises, is nearly indistinguishable. Public architecture is important in part because it reminds us we do have a public, which qualifies and shapes our lives together, a point we seem to have lost. It gives our landscape another type and another message. In pure esthetic terms, it gives an opportunity for esthetic variety.
The Springfield U.S. Federal Court House, by Safdie Architects.
You have to see this from all sides.
https://www.safdiearchitects.c...
Discussion questions:
Is it neoclassical?
Is it neoclassical enough for the strict adherents?
Is it an appropriate expression and well designed?
(I like it.)
The only way to engage this debate is to look at actual examples, of whatever stripe. I wish someone better versed would pick this up.
That's a gorgeous project.
James C. McCrery II et al. proposal to rebuild Lincoln Center. I assume he's still on the Commission?
The architecture of the new Lincoln Center is classical—an architectural language shared by all of Western society, developing over thousands of years and capable of dynamic development in the present and future. It is founded on the human form and has human scale, even in the largest of buildings. It is an architecture of curves, of shifting shadows, of subtlety. It seeks, unashamedly, to be harmonious and beautiful.
Explanation and more designs here:
https://www.city-journal.org/h...
Check out Robert Adam's.
Gary - responding to your posting of the Safdie designed courthouse.
As a counterpoint look at Millennium Park in Chicago, which has an assortment of contemporary architecture and landscape spaces squeezed into a fussy pseudo-neoclassical grid (thanks SOM!). The contemporary buildings are popular and well-loved civic monuments. The neoclassical stuff mostly unnoticed, though if you forced me to pay attention I'd hate them.
It's a red-herring to discuss classical or contemporary as proxy for design quality and civic impact. Good design and good civic space is style-agnostic. So is bad.
Love the Springfield Courthouse. It does, for better or worse, evoke parts of the Vatican.
I agree that, in concept, good architectural design is language (style) agnostic. The medium is not the message. But that generalized understanding doesn't take into account the value of local traditions and maintaining a sense of place. The governmental core of Washington DC is classical, in plan and in its buildings. I believe that there is value in maintaining that character.
Ignoring for a moment the extremely debatable nature of your statement, one very important fact you overlook is that most federal construction is done outside of Washington, DC.
Now I suppose one *could* suggest that federal buildings throughout the country are representations of the seat of power and therefore deserve to be stylistically representative of DC. But that's a tad too "occupying empire" for my tastes.
Personally, I'm not arguing for a classical mandate for Federal architecture everywhere. I'm arguing for architecture that respects the place it occupies, and symbolizes our shared cultural values.
I do believe, though, that the default Federal architecture in Washington DC should be classical, in keeping with the tradition.
Great architecture has always been based on some understanding, certain sets of cultural assumptions. Start with the Greeks, go back, move up and out. We get into trouble when we pretend there are no such ideas—our work becomes mindless—or when we copy a style blindly, without knowing its basis or adopting it to our present times—see above. But those ideas alone will not make good design.
It shouldn't be a mandate, but I think there is value in maintaining classical references, certainly in public buildings, especially in a courthouse. It reminds us, those in the west, that we do have a past, one that goes back some two thousand years, and provides continuity. And neoclassicism of some sort has shaped much American architecture throughout its history. Revivals reference that tradition. It suggests decorum, appropriate for public works, our institutions, along with a common heritage (or what should be a common heritage—we're still working on that one). And it provides a language that allows energetic integration of parts into an engaging and satisfying whole visually while providing a metaphor of how our society should look and work. That is a tough trick, and classical architecture has provided the parts and plans through the ages.
I just haven't seen much recent neoclassical work that succeeds.
Again, I wonder if the Springfield courthouse would satisfy the strict traditionalists. It does have a colonnade that fronts a solid back, abstractly like a temple. Also it is white, like a temple, thus sets itself apart. It is curved to highlight and accommodate two trees in front, which, according to the architects, have historical importance. The curving of the colonnade might recall the Jefferson Memorial as well.
But this is so open and energetic and light, materially and visually. It takes full advantage of modern materials and reflects a modern temperament. There isn't a ponderous, oppressive moment in it. It is open and transparent, according to the architects their goal. Maybe a stretch, but I like to think that it promotes inclusion.
Plus it preserves two trees and sets them center stage.
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